Your future, our focus
When a road trip that is 0-3 on the record is book-ended by 12-hour bus rides, the word nightmare likely applies.
After falling to host Treasure Valley Community College 60-57, the Trappers lost to College of Southern Idaho 77-59, and the Treasure Valley All-Stars 87-82.
That dropped Northwest’s record to 9-6 entering Wednesday’s 7:30 p.m. match-up against Casper College in Powell.
“We came out pretty sluggish,” said Clint Bateman of the Trappers’ Oregon efforts. “We let a couple of games slip away. We didn’t execute well. We kind of had the post-break blues.”
Bateman scored 10 points against Southern Idaho and seven points against the All-Stars and Coach Brian Erickson said Bateman was one of the Trappers’ most consistent players.
Northwest also suffered from the loss of power forward Dan Milota, who twisted his knee in the first game and was unavailable for the remainder of the tournament. The severity of the injury is unclear.
Against the All-Stars brothers Garrison (18 points) and Grant (11) scored well, as did Sukhjot Bains (17). Bains also scored 14 points against Southern Idaho.
This is an almost entirely new team compared with last year’s 31-5 group and Erickson said the newcomers did not cope well with time off for the holidays.
“Having a long break and coming back, you’re not sharp,” he said. “But one thing you can control we did not do. We got out-worked every game. For the most part it was not a good team effort.”
Erickson toyed with the idea of suiting up the players for practice in their own gym immediately at the conclusion of the home bus ride,but refrained.
“They’ve got practice,” he said, “but it’s mental.”
Casper will be a serious test and Erickson wants to see his players take out the frustration of the road trip on the visitors.
“I hope we can,” he said. “Casper is the most athletic team in the league.”
Bateman thinks the message from the trio of losses – the Trappers must go all out, all the time – should seep in.
“I think it should,” he said. “Otherwise there’s something wrong with us.”
(Lew Freedman can be reached at lew@codyenterprise.com.)